


glove upon hand

by alamorn



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-04 13:57:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12772518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/pseuds/alamorn
Summary: Frank Castle, metaphorically standing in his half dug grave, takes a literal hand to get out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title from Romeo and Juliet's “See how she leans her cheek upon her hand./O, that I were a glove upon that hand/That I might touch that cheek!” bc i'm a sap

He started building a new routine as Pete. It felt…weird, to live like it would continue, to live with purpose. The first time he’d been Pete, he’d just been killing time until he died. Now, well, he’d like to stop having nightmares some time in the next year. Maybe fill in some of that abyss of loneliness Karen had pointed out.

So he went to group, and he talked, and he went to Curtis’ for dinner a few times a week and they cooked together. He watched Curtis’ face heal and Curtis tried to talk him into therapy, not just group. He got a place and tried to decorate a little. Pieces of art he picked up from street vendors. He saw the Liebermans sometimes. He tried to pretend he couldn’t feel the urge to violence itching under his skin, pretended that it was the ache of muscles and bones healing. He went to the diner and got burnt coffee and watched sightlines and tried to be just any other man in the city.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

He glanced up, then ducked his head back down. Karen looked good, by which he meant angry, but also amused. Nowhere near tears. No cuts on her face, no man with a bomb wrapped around her. He never knew, with Karen, what trouble she would get up to while he wasn’t looking.

“Mm. Yeah,” he admitted.

She sighed and sat down, flipped her own cup over. “The coffee here any good?”

“No. Cheap.”

She breathed a laugh and waved down the waitress. The waitress raised her eyebrows at Frank, but didn’t say a thing, just filled her mug and left. He guessed that was what tipping more than a hundred percent got him. Karen curled her fingers around the mug and sighed at the warmth. The snow was gray and slushy outside. Warmth was hard to find and important to treasure.

“You look good, Frank,” she said. “Nothing sticking out of you, no blood.” Teasing. Sincere. Both, probably. She tried for teasing and always missed.

He grunted, took a sip of his coffee. Curtis would tell him to be honest, with himself if not with her, so he thought and watched her. She waited patiently. She had more room for patience when she wasn’t worried he was about to kill someone, he guessed. When he wasn’t asking her to help make it happen.

“Been trying to get into a routine,” he said eventually, when all that remained of his coffee was cold and thin in the bottom of the cup. “Wasn’t sure if…” He trailed off. He wasn’t sure if she’d want to see him. He wasn’t sure if he could stand being around her and not…well. He wasn’t sure, that was all.

Karen raised an eyebrow. “I’d rather not have to get kidnapped every time I want to see you, Frank.”

He laughed. “Yeah, uh, me too.”

“So?” she pressed. “Is there space for me in the routine?”

Routines were dangerous. He had a whole speech about it, and David did, too. But he wasn’t supposed to be at war anymore. “Yeah,” he said. “Suppose there is.”

She smiled and put her hand on top of his, just a brief press of skin to skin, then retreated. He stared at his knuckles, still yellow with fading bruises, and felt a phantom of her touch. Oh. _Oh_. “Good to hear,” she said, while he stared at his hands and thought about the softness of her skin like a _moron_.

 _Get a grip, Castle_. “Got a pretty full schedule, you know,” he said, pulling his gaze from his hands and glancing up at her face. “Might be hard to fit you in.”

“Oh, I see,” she said. “Your time alone with bad coffee is sacrosanct. My apologies. I’ll have to tell Curtis he mislead me as to your availability.”

“Curtis sent you?”

“Mm-hm. And he says you owe him a beer for the favor.”

“That so?”

“That’s so.” She smiled as she said it, and his fingers twitched against his mug. Not like squeezing a trigger, but like reaching for his kids, or the way he and his squad used to hold onto each other. Tight. Firm. Reminding each other that they were alive, and in the same room, and that world was more than violence. When had he last touched someone without blood slicking the way? He couldn’t remember.

Karen had hugged him, and he thought…he thought he had touched Leo and Zach. A hand on a shoulder, a hug, but all he could remember was holding the knife to Zach’s throat. Was that who he was, now? A man who threatened children instead of holding them?

He made a sound low in his throat. “Owe him more than that already.”

“Maybe someday he’ll collect.” She smiled again, brushed her hair back from her face. “I gotta go, Frank, but…call me some time. We can get coffee. Or I can get kidnapped again.”

“Coffee,” he said. “Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” she agreed, with a pleased slant to her smile.


	2. Chapter 2

Later, when the sun had fled, he brought a six pack to Curtis’ and waited at the door for Curtis to let him in. Given…everything, when Curtis didn’t answer right away, he thought about breaking the door down. Curtis could be hurt in there, strapped to explosives or shot and bleeding out, or…

It just took him a little while to get around, with one shoulder still injured and his leg off. Frank gestured at him with the beer, explanation and appeal all in one.

“Yeah, come on in,” Curtis said, moving so that he could.

Curtis locked up behind him as Frank set the six-pack on the table and pulled out two bottles. He glanced around for a bottle opener, not about to use the edge of Curtis’ nice table or counters.

“In the drawer.” Curtis sat across from him, sighing in relief. Frank tamped down the familiar surge of guilt and slid the open bottle across the table and Curtis caught it and took a pull. “Not supposed to drink on painkillers,” he said and Frank grinned as he curled his fingers around his own bottle, starting to worry the edge of the label with the edge of his nail.

“Never stopped you before.”

“Nah,” Curtis agreed, and drank again.

“Hear I owe you.”

“Oh, you definitely do,” Curtis laughed. “But this is about Miss Page, and not the whole rest of the laundry list, isn’t it?”

Frank licked his lips and took a sip of his own beer. It was an IPA, hoppier than he liked, and he’d bought it because it was closest to the door. A mistake, but the sort of mistake a normal man might make. “Yeah.”

Curtis leaned back in his chair, looking pleased. His foot slid across the floor and bumped into Frank’s, and Frank had to close his eyes, pretend he wasn’t pushing a little more firmly into him in the hope of finding warmth.

“You know, um,” Frank started, trying not to think about it, “Micro asked me if I missed sex.”

Curtis raised his eyebrows. “And?”

“I don’t. Didn’t. It was. Irrelevant.” He had a mission, and no space for anything else. No space for thoughts of anything soft, or kind. No space for feeling anything but anger and grim satisfaction.

“And now?”

Frank swallows, then takes a sip of his beer. “I don’t know. Haven’t thought about it.”

Curtis waited.

“I, uh.” The label came off in his hand, and he blinked at it. “Yeah, I guess. But not as much as everything else.”

Curtis hummed. Then, “You want a hug, man?”

Frank scoffed. “You gonna make me ask for it?”

“Come here,” Curtis said, holding his arms wide. “I’m not hopping over there when you’ve got two good legs.” He paused, considered what Frank had put his body through in the past few months. “Two legs, anyway.”

Frank scoffed again, but went. Curtis’ arms were warm and solid around him, left hand cupping the back of Frank’s skull, thumb sweeping over his stubble. Frank found himself releasing a shuddering breath.

“Sh, sh, sh,” Curtis hushed in his ear. “I got you.”

Frank breathed there for a moment, locked in by the warmth and pressure of being held, until the fear started to crawl up his back. He needed to be alert. Someone might be coming. They were in danger.

He pulled away, and Curtis let him, with a twist to his mouth. Curtis watched as he glanced around, half clearing the room, half awkwardness.

“You gonna run out on me now, like we just did something embarrassing?” Curtis asked, taking another pull on his beer.

Frank bobbed his head, rocked his weight into a ready stance. “Seems that way.”

“Well,” Curtis said, “thanks for the beer. Try not to run so fast from your Miss Page, she might not be as understanding as I am.”

Frank nodded, and fled. He spent the rest of the evening walking. His fingers went numb fast, even thrust into his pockets. He couldn’t feel his face. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for — peace? Answers? Someone to kill? And was there a difference for him?

He’d had nothing but questions and old needs since he finished his revenge and washed the last of the blood from his knuckles, the lines of his palms. New York offered him no answers tonight, nor any fights to distract him.

Maybe it was too cold. He saw brief bursts of traffic as people got out of work, but the streets always cleared quickly. His joints were aching with the cold, and Curtis’ arms around him were long gone.

He turned to home, for lack of anything else to do.

 

The next day he picked her up for her lunch break. They got paper cups and trudged through the slush. She needed the air, she said, needed to stretch her legs.

He understood that. And with the cold, they walked pressed close together, so their shoulders bumped companionably. “I hear you’re quite the handyman,” she said, as they turned back toward the Bulletin.

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Your friend Micro,” she said. “Said you were seducing his wife away by doing repairs.”

“Seducing,” he scoffed and she laughed.

“Well, think you could bring that seductive wrench work over to my apartment later? My sink’s clogged.”

“Yeah,” he said. “When do you get out of work?”

She looked at him, the Bulletin rising up behind her. She looked comfortable, confident. Totally unimpressed. “You expect me to believe you don’t know that? Come on, Frank.”

He had to smile at his feet. “I’ll come by,” he said. She nodded. Then she put her hand on his bicep and leaned up, pressed her lips to his cheek for a soft moment.

“See you later, Frank,” she said, and left him there.

He could feel the lingering warmth of her lips and the pressure of her hand as he walked away. If he still had a mission, he wouldn’t be thinking about those things, but all he had was time.


	3. Chapter 3

When they got to her place he went to the sink and found it shamelessly unbroken. He threw a curious glance over his shoulder at her and she shrugged. “Had to get you in the door somehow,” she said. “Sit down, Frank.”

“You could just ask,” he said, and sat all the same.

She scoffed. “When do you ever do what I ask? Come on. Sit down.”

He sat, trying to look pointed. “Pretty often, I think.”

She sat next to him, so their knees bumped. She was so _warm_ , and he couldn’t look away from the point of contact. “Frank,” she said, and paused. It looked like the words had piled up and caught in her mouth. He was so used to not letting himself think about the things he wanted that he only realized what he was doing when his hand was on her jaw, his thumb on her lip, pulling it down to allow the words to escape.

She let out a shuddering breath, hot air washing over the sensitive skin of his thumb. When he managed to pull his gaze from his thumb on her lip, and the flash of white teeth and pink gum he’d revealed, her eyes were wide and clear and calculating.

He jerked his hand back and jumped to his feet. “Sorry, ma’am,” he muttered and headed for the door.

“I didn’t mind,” she said, and he paused with his hand on the doorknob. He felt heavy, all of a sudden, so heavy he could hardly move. It would be easy to crumple where he stood. He didn’t know how to do this, didn’t know how to touch her when she wasn’t hurting. Didn’t know how to touch without hurting.

“I did,” he said, and turned the knob.

“Frank,” she said, voice hard. “Sit down. I haven’t said what I needed.”

He closed his eyes. And then he sat. The chair this time, so there wasn’t temptation there shouldn’t be.

She got up and went to the kitchen. The Keurig started burbling. He didn’t stare at her back, but he kept his ear to her, tracking how she moved and stopped and shifted her weight.

“Matt’s dead,” she said, after a long pause. It sounded like something she’d practiced saying in the mirror, carefully unemotional. “I don’t know how much you’ve been keeping up with vigilante news, but I thought you should know. Before that, we met some, uh.” She sighed. “Heroes, I guess. Anyway, I’ve got some numbers on speed-dial, so you don’t need to worry about me.”

He nodded, almost convulsively.

“Don’t…look like that,” she said, coming back around, a mug clutched in her hands. She pressed it into his, and waited there until he glanced up at her. “Look, I’m not going to…” She sighed again, and crossed her arms. Defensive posture, self-soothing. Her fingers were tight around her biceps. “I like you, Frank. You’re a good friend, and you’re not hard to look at, when you’re not covered in blood. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s worse than reality. But I’m not gonna push. This has to be your call.”

She moved away and sat back on the couch, took a moment to rub hard at her eyes. “Shit, this wasn’t supposed to go like this.”

He huffed out a laugh, staring at the coffee in his mug. The liquid was still and unrippled in the cup, so his hands weren’t trembling. That was good. Trembling would be embarrassing. “How was it supposed to go?”

“I don’t know, Frank,” she said. “I just wanted to give you the news. And spend some time together. Work myself into that routine of yours.”

He licked his lips. “There’s space for you.”

She looked at him, blue eyes electric. “Don’t say things you don’t mean. I’m tired of waiting faithfully to hear bad news.”

He felt his face twitching — eyebrows and lips and an emotion he couldn’t parse in the moment. “There’s space for you.”

She looked at him. Studied him, really, like she studied her cases. Could she read him as easily as old newsprint? Finally, she said. “Okay. Okay, Frank. I’ll pencil you in.”

He found himself grinning at her. “Got some free time Tuesday mornings?”

“I think I could,” she said, grinning back.

And when he left, she pressed another warm kiss to his cheek. He carried that touch through until the next one, and carried that until the next, until it was just part of the routine. Two days a week he went to group. Two days a week he got dinner with Curtis. And on Tuesdays, he saw Karen, and she held his hand, and kissed his cheek, and slowly but surely, the warmth of her hands started to fill in that cold and howling hole that had opened inside him.


End file.
